


It Will Be Beautiful

by Awesome_Sauce432



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Flowers, Fluff, Gardening, Gen, Softness, Zuala Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 12:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesome_Sauce432/pseuds/Awesome_Sauce432
Summary: The Mighty Nein have found themselves with a house, and some of them have leapt into making that house a home. This means different things to different people.For Yasha, it means planting flowers.





	It Will Be Beautiful

Yasha found herself standing in the doorway of their house. Their new house. Theirs. It was funny to think of, that they had a house. The Mighty Nein had a house that was all theirs, that they didn’t have to pay rent on, or bribe someone to let them stay at. 

 

If they left to go on some ill-advised adventure, they could come back and everything would be just as they left it. Yasha had her own room now. A room with walls and a roof and a bed and a wall painted with a beautiful field of wildflowers by her friend who cared about her.

 

It was all a bit overwhelming but in a nice way. Yasha had decided that having a house all to their own was rather nice. 

 

But the thing about having a house, at least from her understanding, was that then it had to become a home. Putting up decorations, painting walls, adding in touches of yourself so that someone could walk in and nod, able to tell exactly who lived there, what kind of person they were. 

 

People with houses would put down roots, like the roots of the giant tree Caduceus had grown. Caduceus hadn’t wasted any time in making this house a home for him. Jester hadn’t wasted any time either. Everyone else seemed slightly suspicious and Yasha was pretty sure she’d seen Beau poke around at the floorboards more than once, but with each day everyone seemed to be getting comfortable.

 

Yasha wanted to get comfortable, too. But she’d never had a house. She’d never stayed in one place for very long, so there had been no point in getting comfortable. So she wasn’t exactly sure how to go about making a house a home. 

 

But she had one idea, and that idea had led her out to the doorway, where she stood watching Caduceus dig around in the dirt around the tower, below his massive tree with the bright magic lights hanging off of it. The bag of gardening tools and seeds felt heavy in her hands even though it wasn’t actually that heavy.

 

As if sensing her watching him (perhaps he had) Caduceus’ ears lifted up a little, followed by his head. There was a languid smile on his face when he laid eyes on her, a loose hand waving her over. Yasha found her feet moving, and there was no turning back now. No chance to turn around and bury the bag under her bed where she could pretend it wasn’t there. 

 

Instead she found herself stopping just a few feet away from Caduceus, everything in her arms plain to see. 

 

“Hello Yasha. Looking to do some gardening yourself?” Caduceus glanced back down at what he was doing, dropping a few small seeds into tiny holes in the ground. 

 

“Ah, yes.” Yasha sat herself down on the ground, placing her bag on her lap and pulling out a small bag of seeds. “I have flower seeds.” 

 

She was honestly surprised she’d been able to find flower seeds in Roshanna at all, considering the constant darkness of the place. But apparently, a lot of them, often sourced from elsewhere in Xhorhas, were used in some northern dishes. Yasha had never heard of it, but things, including food, had been far simpler down south. She wasn’t about to complain about it, though.

 

Caduceus peered into the seed bag she offered him, his face completely calm as if he had no idea what flowers meant to her. That there was anything out of the ordinary for any of this. Yasha actually liked that about Caduceus. He hardly seemed truly fazed by things, he just filed away new things and new information, responded accordingly, and then moved on with his life. He rarely seemed uncertain, and it was a bit comforting in some ways. 

 

“They look very nice,” Caduceus said warmly. “I’m sure they’ll grow brilliantly under these lights.”

 

“Yeah.” Yasha looked up at the lights, shining brightly above her, beacons announcing their presence to anyone with eyes. 

 

She looked back down at her seeds, then at Caduceus again. “I… I don’t actually know much about gardening.” 

 

Here the firbolg paused, bringing his hands back from where he’d been gentling pushing dirt over the seeds he’d just planted before he reached back to grab a small tin watering can, not really looking in her direction when he eventually answered. “Okay, what  _ do _ you know?”

 

Putting her seed bag on the ground, Yasha pulled out a tiny shovel that she’d bought. “You put the seeds in the ground, and water them, and then they grow. Is that it?”

 

“Not quite. But you’ve got the general idea.” Caduceus’ smile widened a little, and he looked at her, nodding in approval when he saw the kit she’d bought. “And you’ve got all the right tools.”

 

“Okay, so what else is there?” Yasha hesitated, before continuing. “I would like to get good at gardening.” 

 

“The hardest part is just knowing what each seed needs to grow. Some are quite resilient, while others need lots of attention. But I imagine Xhorhassian seeds would be quite tough, like you?” 

 

Caduceus glanced at her, and Yasha’s mouth curled into a small smile. “I think so, yes. But I’ve never seen Xhorhassian flowers.”

 

“Then it will be a learning experience for us both. But planting them should be fairly similar to planting other flowers.” Caduceus picked up his own small shovel. “Where would you like to start?”

 

Caduceus showed her how to space out seeds properly, judging the best distance to plant them so that none of the budding flowers would be pushed for space or light, to give all of them the best chance to grow. He showed her how deep to dig the holes for the seeds, how to carefully settle some bulbs that she’d managed to get into good places, pushing the dirt around them and leaving a tiny part poking out. 

 

He showed her the difference between weeds that were snaking their way in between clumps of dirt, and normal plants and grass that were able to survive in the darkness. Yasha wasn’t sure how they did it, but she supposed nature found a way. 

 

The whole time Caduceus was as calm and gentle as ever, his voice soothing and his instructions peppered between memories of planting flowers back at his home. How his parents had given him a small plot of garden to care for before they charged him with caring for graves, to help him learn everything he’d need to know.

 

“How did planting flowers help you care for graves?” Yasha asked, her voice subdued but a tiny, relaxed smile on her face. 

 

“It taught me some responsibility, I suppose.” Caduceus mused, looking wistful. “And a lot of things were similar. Plants need sunlight, water, and some care and soon enough they’ll grow so strong they can take care of themselves. Our graves were much the same. Eventually, all they need is maintenance and some attention every now and then, and nature will take over.” 

 

“I think your home must be very beautiful then.” Yasha wished she had been around and awake to see Caduceus’ home. She could imagine it in her head, picturing a small house with vines climbing up the walls, bright bunches of flowers everywhere you looked. Calm, and peaceful and… a place where the rest of the world just wouldn’t seem to matter. 

 

“It is.” Caduceus paused in his gardening, chuckling to himself while Yasha sprinkled water over some of her seeds with the watering can. “Even now, it’s still beautiful.”

 

“I would like to visit someday.” She said solemnly. “Perhaps after we cure it, and then I can help you clean up.”

 

“That sounds quite nice, actually. I’d appreciate that.” 

 

The two of them continued with their work in silence, an easy silence that Yasha had gotten used to between them. She found that some of the others often became uncomfortable in silence, liking to fill it with chatter or jokes or complaints about some inane thing that bothered them that day. Yasha liked that sometimes because the others were funny and charming and she cared about them all.

 

But Caduceus was never bothered by silence, and Yasha liked the silence too. They didn’t need to talk about anything or worry about what they were going to do next or what side of the war they were going to take. They could just crouch down on the ground, her fingers stained by dirt and her legs damp from accidentally spilling water on them, and she could plant flowers.

 

She could imagine what they’d look like when they begin to grow and flower, and she could think about how Zuala would probably have loved them, and perhaps that thought wasn’t tinged with as much sadness as usual. 

 

Finally, they had finished planting all of the seeds and bulbs, carefully watered them, and drawn lines in the dirt around them to show the others where not to step. They stood up, and when Yasha looked out over her efforts she felt pride tickling at the bottom of her heart, a soft, relaxed satisfaction. 

 

“I think we’ve done quite well for ourselves here, don’t you think?” Caduceus seemed chuffed, slowly rubbing some of the dirt off of his hands. 

 

“Yes, I think we have.” Yasha held the watering can. “I hope they grow.”

 

“I’m sure they will. Nature tends to find a way.”

 

Yasha nodded, looking around. “I suppose we will stand out even more when we have flowers growing everywhere.” 

 

“Indeed we will. But it will be beautiful.” Caduceus chuckled again. “The first flower garden in Roshanna, do you think?”

 

Perhaps the first flower garden in all of Xhorhas, Yasha thought to herself as she nodded in response to Caduceus. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a flower garden in her homeland ever. 

 

“It will be beautiful.” She repeated Caduceus’ words, a little softer than the firbolg had been. She still found herself smiling, not a big smile like Jester or a cocky half-smile like Beau, but a smile all the same. 

 

She’d always loved looking at flowers, and she’d always wondered what it would be like to grow them herself, to watch them flourish and thrive. Now she had a house, and she could make it a home, and even if they left they could come back because it was theirs, and it was going to be beautiful. 

**Author's Note:**

> i have ALWAYS believed that Yasha and Caduceus would be a great friendship duo (see my second Molly Lives fic wherein they were roommates and they were the best) and canon has been PROVING ME RIGHT
> 
> and they did GARDENING yasha bought a GARDENERS KIT so you can't tell me she didn't get to work planting Flowers
> 
> If Caduceus can make a giant magic tree and hang christmas lights on it he can figure out how to make flowers happen


End file.
